Court of Appeal for Ontario
Before: Simmons, Juriansz and van Rensburg JJ.A.
Between
Her Majesty the Queen Respondent
and
Conroy Rose Appellant
Counsel: Richard Litkowski, for the appellant Ghazala Zaman, for the respondent
Heard and released orally: March 12, 2015
On appeal from the conviction entered on September 13, 2011 by Justice Wolfram Tausendfreund of the Superior Court of Justice and the forfeiture order of Justice Lynn Leitch of the Superior Court of Justice dated August 24, 2012.
ENDORSEMENT
1We are not persuaded that the trial judge made a palpable and overriding error in holding that the police officer who drafted the information to obtain (“ITO”) made “an innocent mistake … without any intent to mislead” in relation to the drafting errors in the ITO.
2However, even assuming the police officer was negligent in making the drafting errors, we are not persuaded that trial judge erred in finding the search warrants could have issued. In reaching this conclusion, we have considered that certain erroneous information should be excised from the ITO (namely, that the confidential informant had no criminal record for misleading police or for offences of dishonesty); and that certain information omitted from the ITO (concerning the confidential informant’s criminal record and outstanding charges and the amount of money found on the appellant’s person when he was arrested) should have been included in the ITO. Nonetheless, taking account of the totality of the circumstances (including the post-tip surveillance of the appellant by the police and their prior knowledge of him), we conclude that the search warrants could have issued.
3In the result, we need not consider s. 24(2) of the Charter.
4The appeal is therefore dismissed.
“Janet Simmons J.A.”
“R.G. Juriansz J.A.”
“K. van Rensburg J.A.”
